U 2362

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U 2362
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Type : Type XXIII
Field Post Number : 51 115
Shipyard: Deutsche Werft AG , Hamburg
Construction contract: September 20, 1943
Build number: 518
Keel laying: November 22, 1944
Launch: January 11, 1945
Commissioning: February 5, 1945
Commanders:

Martin Czekowski

Flotilla:
Calls: no
Sinkings:

no

Whereabouts: on 5 May 1945 by the crew in the Geltinger bay scuttled

U 2362 was a submarine of the German Navy during World War II . It was a so-called “coastal submarine” of the lightly armed Type XXIII , which was equipped with an extendable snorkel and was based on a development by the inventor Hellmuth Walter . U 2362 was sunk by its own crew shortly before the end of the war.

construction

Deutsche Werft AG in Hamburg-Finkenwerder was involved in the Kriegsmarine's submarine building program from the start of the war . However, it was one of the few production facilities that did not build any type VII submarines, which were most built during World War II . Instead, this shipyard was commissioned exclusively with the production of type IX boats . At the end of 1943, the Deutsche Werft AG was commissioned for the first time with type XXIII boats . From then on, the shipyard was intended to deliver eight boats of this type per month. By the end of the war, the shipyard had delivered 48 Type XXIII boats to the Navy, 19 of them in the final year of the war.

Technical specifications

These boats were equipped with a newly developed snorkel . This was used to supply air, while exhaust gases could be discharged at the same time. Snorkels were already used in German submarines, but they were attached to the upper deck as a fold-out structure and were considered difficult to handle. In 1943, Hellmuth Walter's engineering office in Kiel developed a submarine for short-term use near the coast that was equipped with such a snorkel, which, similar to a periscope , could be extended vertically. The construction of the Type XXIII was based on this development, but in contrast to the "Walter U-Boats" , the production of which was given up in favor of this type, it had a conventional drive and was somewhat larger.

Such "coastal submarines" were originally designed for use in the Black Sea and the Mediterranean and should not penetrate far into the open sea. Therefore, armament with two torpedoes was considered sufficient. For reasons of space it was not possible to carry replacement torpedoes and the existing ones could not be removed from the torpedo tubes and had to be introduced from the outside. The 34.7 m long and 3 m wide Type XXIII boats had a crew of up to 12 men. These were single-hulled boats that could reach speeds of up to 9.7 knots when underwater  . In the last two years of the war, a total of 61 Type XXIII submarines were built. Of these, 30 were put into service in 1945.

Commitment and history

U 2362 was put into service on February 5, 1945 under the command of Oberleutnant zur See Martin Czekowski. The 23-year-old commander had previously served as an officer on watch on U 608 . On February 5, 1945, U 2362 was initially assigned to the 32nd U-Flotilla as a training boat . Two weeks later the boat came to the 4th U-Flotilla in Stettin .

End of the boat

U 2362 was sunk by its own crew on May 5th in the Geltinger Bay near Flensburg . On this day, as a result of the rainbow order , 34 other German submarines in addition to U 2362 were sunk in the Geltinger Bay by their own crews.

See also

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The U-Boat War 1939-1945. Volume 2: Submarine construction in German shipyards. ES Mittler und Sohn, Hamburg / Berlin / Bonn 1997, ISBN 3-8132-0512-6 , page 232
  2. ↑ Eberhard Rössler: " History of German U-Boatbuilding. Volume 2" , Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Bonn 1996, ISBN 3-86047-153-8 , page 341
  3. ↑ Bodo Herzog : German U-Boats 1916–1966 , Karl Müller Verlag, Erlangen 1996, ISBN 3-86070-036-7 , page 203
  4. ↑ Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The U-Boat War 1939-1945. Volume 4: The German submarine losses from September 1939 to May 1945. ES Mittler und Sohn, Hamburg / Berlin / Bonn 1999, ISBN 3-8132-0514-2 , page 185 to page 186
  5. ↑ Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The U-Boat War 1939-1945. Volume 1: The German submarine commanders. ES Mittler und Sohn, Hamburg et al. 1996, ISBN 3-8132-0490-1 , p. 47.
  6. ↑ Axel Niestlé: "German U-Boat Losses of World War II. Details of Destruction ", Frontline Books, London 2014, ISBN 978-1-84832-210-3 , page 176
  7. ↑ Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The U-Boat War 1939-1945. Volume 4: The German submarine losses from September 1939 to May 1945. ES Mittler and Son, Hamburg / Berlin / Bonn 1999, ISBN 3-8132-0514-2 , page 358